Beasts of the Southern Wild

Gotta admit- this one did not do much for me. Certainly not in my top 10.

The child actress, Quvenzhané Wallis, did not impress me. I know, I know- she’s just a kid and I should leave her alone. BUT, may I remind all 2 of my readers that she is nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. There is no way in hell a performance from a 5 year old should qualify for an Oscar nom. Not a chance. Her range in this film consisted of “pretend you are angry”, and “frown”. She did shed a tear near the end of the film, so I suppose that counts.

Not nominated was the actor that played her ailing father- Dwight Henry. Now this guy had a good role. I cannot see his performance being nominated for an Oscar, but he was pretty good.

The story is about a community that lives on the “bad side” of a levee down south. The bad side would be the side that floods. These people are poor, dirt poor, but they do alright. They catch their dinner and booze away the troubles. The star of the film is Hushpuppy, the little girl. The film follows her as her father gets sick, a Hurricane hits the area, and they deal with it. Dealing with it consists of getting shitfaced drunk with the other fools who ignored the flood warnings and then blowing a small hole in the levee to drain the water out of their land. Because that’s what happens when Levees break, they drain the ocean.

Actually, that’s not how levees work. The sea levels rise up and flood everything on the “beach side” of the levee. If the levee fails, water pours into the protected areas, but the water levels in the already flooded areas would not change. It would still be flooded until the ocean recedes. Anyway, after this short break in stupid-ville, they return to their destroyed homes and are then evacuated by authorities and taken to a shelter for food and medical attention. Of course, once there they go batshit crazy and break out of the place that’s trying to keep them alive. They escape back to their squalor, including that father who is deathly ill at this point. The girl next finds herself on a floating whorehouse, has a strange run in with a hooker, and then returns home to care for her dad as he dies.

Not entirely sure what this movie wanted to “say”, but I kept waiting for Social Services to take this poor little girl away from these drunken maniacs. Seriously, these people are clueless.

When the Feds say “Flood coming! You are gonna die” please be intelligent and LEAVE! Don’t stay!

Now this next part is tricky, but do your best to follow:

If they want to give you medical attention after an evacuation STAY! Don’t leave! Medicine= good! Death=bad!

Oh well. I am not from the south. I can only assume there is some crucial bit of culture I am missing to appreciate the endangerment of this child by a pack of loonies. Oh, she also hallucinated several aurochs which are extinct cows. Maybe she’s a bit nuts after all.